


5 Times Jonghyun Was A Creepy Stalker (But Not Really)

by sunbaenim



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbaenim/pseuds/sunbaenim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonghyun's habit of staring off into nothingness gets him into trouble. And by trouble I of course mean love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Jonghyun Was A Creepy Stalker (But Not Really)

**Author's Note:**

> So. This is one of those fics that you forget about for three years and then read again only to discover you still like it enough to post it! Who am I kidding, that never actually happens. But I do enjoy it, and it feels like something to be shared. If anyone still reads SHINee fic, specifically JongKey, this one's for you~

**0**

Despite his cocky attitude, Kim Jonghyun was shy. He could flash his stupid grin at the girls who swarmed him at school, and he was confident enough to crack jokes in class, but that was all to keep new people from getting to close to him. He had a few good friends, but for the most part he chose to use his disarming charm to keep everyone at a safe distance. Jinki, forever jealous of Jonghyun’s supposed ease with the opposite sex, was perpetually baffled by the fact that Jonghyun was single. Ignoring the fact that Jinki was born into a constant state of bafflement, this particular problem had him especially perplexed.

“You don’t even have to do anything!” Jinki grumbled one day at lunch in the university dining hall. “They just flock to you. The hardest part would be picking one.”

Jonghyun rolled his eyes as he sipped his soda, gazing around the dining hall apathetically. “Yeah, whatever,” he replied with a yawn, “Relationships are too much work.”

Draining the rest of his drink, Jonghyun fiddled with the can and promptly ignored Jinki’s whining. His eyes unfocused, Jonghyun stared off into space. A minute later his vision refocused and he realized he was sharing extremely awkward eye contact with a boy sitting on the other side of the room. Flushing slightly, Jonghyun averted his eyes and tuned back into Jinki’s ranting.

“If I were you, I’d use all there fangirls to my advantage. Then I could finally go out with Luna and—”

“If you were me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Jonghyun interrupted absentmindedly. He was still thinking about how he’d been staring at that boy for what must have been half and hour. Okay not really, but Jonghyun tended to exaggerate.

“Exactly,” Jinki said triumphantly. “Wait, what?”

“I’ll see you later,” Jonghyun said as he pulled on his jacket, hurrying out of the dining hall and staring at his feet just in case he caught the boy’s eyes again.

 

**1**

The first time it happened was a mistake. Jonghyun was in the library for the first time in his entire life, and so of course he was lost. Pacing back and forth between two aisles, he kept glancing at a scrap of paper with a series of messy numbers jotted down. Was that a zero or a six? He really had to improve his handwriting, or at least his memory. What was his professor’s problem, anyways? Making them use an actual book source for the midterm paper. Jonghyun was a vocal major, not a literature major.

He was contemplating the benefits of sticking it to the man by not finishing a paper worth a quarter of his grade when he knocked into a moving stack of books. A sharp cry came from behind the books as a few toppled from the top of the stack, revealing a boy behind them.

“Yah, watch where you’re going!” the boy said irritably as Jonghyun blinked dumbly at him. It was the boy he’d been inadvertently staring at in the dining hall the week before. Of course. Because not only did he have to brave the library, but he also had to be humiliated in the process.

“Hey, you’re that creep that was staring at me in the dining hall,” the boy said as Jonghyun leaned down to gather the fallen books.

“Huh?” Jonghyun replied intelligently, deciding to pick up the books as fast as he could and run away as close to lightspeed as humanly possible.

“You were staring at me with your mouth hanging open,” the boy said, imitating Jonghyun’s trademark brain-not-working-come-back-later expression with frightening accuracy.

“Oh, sorry about that. Sometimes I just space out,” Jonghyun apologized as he backed away slowly.

“Well okay. As long as you’re not some weirdo,” the boy replied with a slight smile as he readjusted his armful of books. “See you are then.”

Jonghyun sighed with relief as the boy walked away and disappeared down on the the many aisles of books. Taking one last look around for the book he’d wanted, Jonghyun gave up and bolted for the exit, not wanting to run the risk of bumping into the boy again.

 

**2**

The second time was not a mistake. Something about the boy had Jonghyun thinking about him daily. He kept wondering if he would bump into him again and he started looking for his distinct hair (he had rainbow highlights, it would be hard to miss) whenever he was in crowds of fellow students. Jonghyun even went to the library again (under the pretense of wanting to actually do well on an essay for once) but failed to see the boy again. Figured. He’d had enough books to last Jonghyun two lifetimes, let alone the couple weeks it had been since they’d met in the library.

In the end, Jonghyun resorted to asking Krystal, princess of gossip on campus and second only to her older sister, Jessica. Jonghyun wasn’t really on speaking terms with Jessica anymore, but Krystal had enough of a crush on him to see past that. Hopefully.

“Oh, so you’re gay? Now it makes sense about why you turned down Sica,” Krystal said breezily when Jonghyun described the boy to her.

“Huh?” Jonghyun said, busting out his favorite intelligent reply.

“The boy sounds just like Kim Kibum, the gayest boy on campus. Fashionable, loud, and has a thing for doing crazy stuff to his hair. His friends call him Key because he wants to ‘stand out from all the Kim Kibums in the world’ or something like that. Also he’s got a thing for English,” she said, emphasizing her words with unnecessary air quotes.

“Sounds like you know him pretty well,” Jonghyun replied as casually as possible while his mind worked on processing this concept of gay.

“He was in my Victorian fashion class last semester.”

Everything clicked into place in Jonghyun’s head (a rare occurrence). Kibum was a fashion major. Definitely gay. Jonghyun was pretty sure that there were only a handful of male fashion majors on campus, and the few that he’d met had been just as bad as any of his female fans.

“So are you gay now?” Krystal asked, pulling Jonghyun from his thoughts. “Or do you have some other reason for wanting to know about Key?”

“Do you know if he has a job on campus?” Jonghyun asked, skillfully avoiding the question.

“No,” Krystal replied, and Jonghyun’s heart dropped just a little. “But he works at a coffee shop a few blocks away,” she finished, bringing a smile back to Jonghyun’s face.

“Where?” he asked, jotting down the address and thanking Krystal as he left. He wasn’t sure what it was about Kibum that had Jonghyun so vexed, but he was determined to figure out why he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

 

**3**

Jonghyun walked into the small coffee shop as casually as one could when they were kinda sorta stalking someone. Glancing around, he noticed that the few people sitting in booths or at tables were all generally the same: hipsters. Trying not to groan aloud, Jonghyun wondered if he should just leave now. It wasn’t that he had a problem with hipsters, it was more that they seemed to have a problem with him. He glanced down at his tight black jeans and band shirt and wondered if he should come back later when he wasn’t dressed like such a, well, such a Jonghyun.

“Are you gonna order or just stand there with that dumb look on your face?”

The familiar voice brought Jonghyun’s attention to the boy at the register, one Kim Kibum wearing thick rimmed glasses and an over-sized circle scarf. Jonghyun was screwed. He’d forgotten the crucial fact that Kibum was a fashion major. Still trying to figure out why the hell he even cared, Jonghyun stepped forward.

“Sorry, it’s a habit. Told ya I tend to space out a lot,” Jonghyun said with a shrug, focusing on the chalkboard menu to keep himself from staring at Kibum or doing something equally as stupid.

“I recognized the look,” Kibum replied, letting his mouth drop open and unfocusing his eyes. Pouting as Kibum laughed, Jonghyun tried not to think about how Kibum’s tongue poked out of his mouth when he laughed.

“Anyways, I’m Kibum as my name tag clearly states,” Kibum continued with a point to the tag pinned to his shirt, “You should tell me yours to be fair.”

A little surprised by the boy’s ease with complete strangers (well, almost complete), Jonghyun stumbled over his own name like the moron he was. “Jonghyun. Kim Jonghyun.”

“Well, Jonghyun Kim Jonghyun, do you want to order some coffee or do you just want to stand there and stare at me some more?”

Flushing lightly, Jonghyun realized he hadn’t even decided on what he wanted to drink. “What would you recommend?” he said instead, proud of himself for not only thinking of a response in the first place, but also for thinking of a response that would buy him more conversational time with Kibum. He could be smart when it really mattered, apparently.

“I always get dirty chai lattes, but I don’t know how popular those are in general,” Kibum replied, tapping a long finger against his bottom lip. Jonghyun gulped for some reason, he wasn’t really sure why. “You can never go wrong with a vanilla latte, though.”

“Sounds good. I like vanilla.” Wow I’m boring, Jonghyun thought with an internal cringe. “Could I get it iced though?” Okay maybe a little less conventional? Oh my god why do I even care?

Kibum chuckled, though he wasn’t really sure if that was a good thing of not. “Three-twenty-five, please.”

Out of semi-intelligent things to say, Jonghyun paid and went to wait for his coffee as far from Kibum as possible. When it was finally ready, he grabbed it and bolted. Just as he opened the door to leave, he heard Kibum say something behind him.

“I’m sure I’ll see you around again, stalker boy,” Kibum called, laughter in his voice.

Jonghyun was pretty sure he blushed red hot the whole way home despite the cold coffee.

 

**4**

Once he was fairly certain Kibum wasn’t totally freaked out by him, Jonghyun started spending more and more time at the coffee shop. Though it started with him only staying if Kibum was working, he began sitting around even when the other boy wasn’t there. It was during one such day when Kibum came in while Jonghyun was sipping an iced vanilla latte in the corner as he worked on a new song.

“It’s funny,” Kibum said, scaring Jonghyun out of his state of concentration and making his pen rip through his sheet music. “I don’t remember ever seeing you here before that day in the library.”

Trying to fix the hole in his paper, Jonghyun shrugged in a way that he hoped was casual. “Maybe you just never noticed me before.”

Kibum shook his head. “I would notice you.”

Jonghyun was left trying to figure out what that meant while Kibum went to order coffee. He still hadn’t worked it out when Kibum returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug.

“Mind if I join you?” Kibum asked even though he didn’t wait for an answer before sitting down across from Jonghyun. “What’re you working on?”

“Uh, homework,” Jonghyun replied as he tried to put it away before Kibum saw any of it. Unfortunately, Kibum had no problem with reaching out and snatching it away from him.

“Sheet music?” Kibum asked as he scanned the page. Jonghyun was just glad he hadn’t been working on one of his sappier love songs.

“I’m a vocal major,” Jonghyun explained, gently taking the paper back and stowing it in his bag.

Kibum laughed and Jonghyun noticed (not for the first time) that he laughed with his whole body, not the half-hearted giggle that girls always hid behind their hands. “That fits. I’m a fashion major, but I’m sure you already knew that.”

Jonghyun laughed uncomfortably and shook his head. “How would I know that?” he asked. Suddenly he realized that asking Krystal about something wasn’t the safest of moves. She was likely to gossip about it to everyone she knew, especially if it helped regain Jessica’s reputation if everyone believed Jonghyun to be gay. Curse the social structure of college students and the female thirst for drama.

“Isn’t that what stalkers do?” Kibum replied with a smirk.

“Maybe I should leave,” Jonghyun said with a blush, gathering his things. “I have to, uh, do laundry.”

Kibum just laughed and nodded. “See you later, then, Jonghyun.”

Stumbling with his books at the sound of his name coming from Kibum for the first time, Jonghyun fought to make his brain work long enough to reply. “Um, see ya, Kibum.”

“Call me Key!” Kibum called after him, making Jonghyun miss the door handle and slam into the door instead. Key’s laughter followed him all the way down the street and back to his apartment.

 

**5**

A month of casual friendship later and Jonghyun was basically in love with Kibum. Not that he was surprised. The events leading up to that point had consisted of him stalking a stranger and thinking about him pretty much all day every day. And Kibum had been completely relaxed about the whole thing, poking fun at Jonghyun and calling him “stalker boy” more often than he used his real name. On the flip side, it’d taken Jonghyun a while to start referring to Kibum as “Key,” but had finally been convinced when Kibum complained that none of his real friends still called him by his real name. They had claimed a corner table in the coffee shop as their own, Jonghyun working on his music while Kibum either did fashion homework or worked the register. All throughout this Jonghyun did his best not to stare at Kibum, but occasionally he’d slip up and Kibum would just laugh when he finally came out of his trance.

“Just ask him out already,” Jinki whined, “I’m sick of you telling me about how great he is.”

“What if he rejects me, though?” Jonghyun replied, pushing his rice around with his chopsticks and sulking.

“He won’t okay. Man, you complain that you can’t find someone you like, and now you won’t do anything about it.”

“Look who’s talking. How’re things with Luna going?” Jonghyun retorted, eyebrows raised. Confident that he had successfully shut Jinki up for a while, he sighed and gathered his things. “I gotta go, I’m meeting Key in an hour.”

“Just ask him to dinner or something more than coffee and studying,” Jinki replied, still pouting over Jonghyun’s mention of Luna.

“I’ll think about it. Later,” he replied with a wave.

Jonghyun thought about the benefits of asking Kibum out the entire walk to the coffee shop. On the one hand, dating meant things like kissing and staring at Kibum as much as he wanted without being teased about it (much). On the other hand, it could mean rejection or an eventual breakup resulting in him never seeing Kibum ever again unless they awkwardly bumped into each other on the street or met at a college reunion in ten years when they both had real jobs and wives and kids and houses. Or worse, they could end up having a class together. Jonghyun was so deep in thought that he almost passed the coffee shop without even noticing.

“Something bothering you?” asked Kibum a few minutes after he had sat down across from Jonghyun. “You’re spacing out more than usual.”

“Uh, yeah, fine,” Jonghyun replied, returning to his history homework. A minute later he has what he considered to be a stroke of genius, though that wasn’t really saying much. “Actually, I was thinking about a girl that I want to ask out.”

Kibum blinked, the corner of his lips twitching. “Oh. Well I doubt she’d turn you down.”

Jonghyun leaned closer, not having expected that response. “Really? What makes you say that?”

Shrugging, Kibum looked down at his textbook. “You seem like the kind of guy that most girls would want to date. You look like popular guys do, but you’re funny and nice. Even though you’re a dumbass.”

Looking down at his homework to hide a smirk, Jonghyun shrugged. “She’s a pretty unique girl, I don’t know if she’s into the popular kind of guy. Plus she’s really fashionable, and I know I’m not.”

“Then she’ll enjoy finding new clothes for you to wear,” Kibum replied, and Jonghyun was taken aback by the bite in his tone of voice. “Can we just focus? I have a test in the morning.”

“Oh, I guess I shouldn’t ask you out to dinner tonight, then,” Jonghyun said casually, though suddenly his heart was beating a thousand times per minute.

The long pause that stretched between them almost had Jonghyun racing out the door when Kibum finally broke the silence. 

“Did you just ask me advice about myself through a hypothetical girl?”

“Uh...” Jonghyun wasn’t really sure how to answer. At least Kibum hadn’t thrown anything at him. Yet. “Maybe?”

“I’m not sure whether that’s unforgivable or kind of adorable,” Kibum finally said as he gathered his things. Jonghyun was guessing he was leaning towards unforgivable if he was already leaving so soon after arriving. He was about to apologize when Kibum started talking again.

“I guess we can discuss this more tonight at dinner. But you’re buying,” Kibum added, “Since you asked me out and all.”

Jonghyun blinked before a goofy grin threatened to split his face in half. “See you tonight, Key!”

Chuckling as he walked towards the door, Kibum turned to smile at Jonghyun as he waved goodbye. “Later, stalker boy.”


End file.
